• Alright, so perhaps it’s a little self-serving…Alright, a LOT self-serving, but hey, why not celebrate making it through another year on this planet.
  With the orange alerts, depleting ozones, and all the abuse I give to my body over the course of 365 days (well, this year, 366), it’s quite the
  achievement these days. After being around for so long, you start to appreciate the smaller things more…Looking up into a blue sky during a run in the
  park on a sunny day, drinking a cold beer after a sweaty day of yard work, even just settling into a comfy chair in the evening and enjoying a moment of
  silent relaxation…You get the idea. Just stuff that I used to take for granted. As you get older, and your back actually HURTS the next day after a
  tough round of snow shoveling, you start to realize that you’re not a kid anymore.

I’ll tell ya what else I like, though, and that’s learning new stuff. It doesn’t have to be big stuff, in fact, most of the time it’s quite trivial. But some
days I learn something new and it becomes a part of my daily routine. Or I just figure something out that I should have figured out a long time ago. A
lot of wise folks say that you should try and learn one new thing EVERY day and, while great in theory, I can’t say I did that. But there’s a few quick
things that come to mind that I realized over the past year, so I figured, why not take the time to share? So, here’s a few of my favorites, in no
particular order:

• 90% of the movies in the theater in any given year aren’t really worth watching. Yet I’ll continue to watch them anyway (at least, once).
• Washing your hair with a separate shampoo and conditioner instead of a combo forumla DOES make it feel better.
• Reality TV is evil and must be stopped before it consumes us all.
• Some diet soda ain’t so bad after all. And it has no calories. In particular, Diet Sierra Mist, Diet Vanilla Coke, and Diet Dr. Pepper.
• Two of the best places in the world to party are Ybor City, Tampa and Las Vegas, Nevada.
• A strawberry is the ONLY fruit that grows its seeds on the outside (thank you, Snapple).

Alright, just a quick list that I threw together in 5 minutes. But I know there’s lots more. And as silly and stupid as some or all of those things above
may seem to you, if at least one of you reading today’s update learned something from that above list, my job is done. I’ve actually taken something I’ve
learned and helped someone else. And that’s good. Maybe the more we help each other, the less time we’ll spend worrying about orange alerts. And if you
enjoyed it, heck, maybe I’ll do it again next year. Assuming I learn something.

Alright, enough with the bloggish news entry here. And now, as I continue to try and adjust to being 31, I take you back to our regularly scheduled
program…